Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 824(@200wpm)___ 659(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
“I do remember all of our summers together,” I pointed out.
“The days before.” His cryptic words ended with a slight flinch as he heard me advancing toward him. “I have no use of those memories. It wasn’t the real me inside them.”
I inched closer.
“Do not take another step, Briar. I will not be held responsible for what happens next.”
He wanted to scare me. To threaten me so I would back down.
“What happened?” I paused, softening my voice. “Why are you so mad?”
“Why are you so nosy?”
“Natural curiosity paired with the need for validation,” I answered truthfully. “I can’t imagine you so angry.”
Ignoring his warning, I treaded closer. Maybe it was the wrong thing to do, not giving him the space he needed. But something told me he’d been alone for a very long time. Longer than weeks and months. Years. That he craved a human touch more than he did his next breath. They say loneliness isn’t being alone. It’s feeling unseen. Well, Sebastian endured both, and it had reduced him to a shadow of his old self.
“You were always so joyful.” I blinked away salty liquid, wondering when I’d started to tear up. “So vibrant. So beautiful …”
A dark chuckle escaped him. His entire back rumbled with it. I’d made it just a few feet shy of him. His labored breaths bounced between us. Tiny beads of sweat glistened on the back of his neck. My proximity made him nervous.
That makes both of us.
“Suffice to say I am no longer either of those things.” He ran his finger over the windowsill, collecting a mountain of dust. The housekeepers never came in here and cleaned, I gathered. “I’m not the kid you remember, Briar. I am a monster. A pariah. Oliver did the right thing, telling you not to come here. I will hurt you.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Why?” he asked. In wonder, almost.
Were people scared of him now? Did he do something awful?
“Because I might not know what happened in the last fifteen years, but I do know your heart, and it is good.”
More silence.
He hadn’t turned around to face me.
I put two and two together.
Trio and Geezer rounded him from each side. Geezer pushed his head against his foot, and Trio jumped with his two front legs on the windowsill, tracking whatever Seb stared at.
Sebastian peered down, running his knuckles over Trio’s head. The goofy pup licked the tips of his fingers and stared up at him with open adoration.
“I’m not beautiful anymore,” Seb said after a while.
I closed my eyes. A lone tear fell from one of them. “I figured as much.”
“I make babies cry.”
“Babies are crybabies. Don’t pay attention to them. They’re little drama queens.”
He didn’t laugh. “My own parents struggle to look at my face.”
I rested a tentative hand on his shoulder. His entire body clayed into stone. He shuddered, and I could feel his goosebumps through his shirt. He was shaking, quaking, melting under a simple touch. I had to swallow down a scream that threatened to rip from my mouth.
“Briar …”
“Look at me, Sebastian.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
I wanted to hug him from behind, to mold my body into his, to shield him like a coat, but I knew he wasn’t ready for it yet. Sebastian would have to rediscover life from scratch, just like me. Breath by breath. Touch by touch. One smile at a time. But it would be at his own pace and his own volition. Healing comes when you’re ready – and not a moment sooner.
The sunlight licked at his skin, exposing a gnarled long scar that ran from his shoulder down to the tip of his finger. It looked like somebody had tried to rip his skin apart.
“No one has ever seen me like this. Not even my best friends. No one other than Ollie, my parents, and a handful of carers.” He swallowed hard. “Even they had to sign an iron-clad NDA.”
“I’m family,” I reminded him. “We grew up together, Seb. You can trust me.”
He grabbed the windowsill and clenched it until his knuckles turned raw. I stepped away to give him space. He shook so badly, I almost told him not to do it.
And then he turned around, and the entire universe came crashing down on me.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Briar
Sebastian.
Beautiful, golden Sebastian.
He didn’t look like himself anymore.
His body remained seemingly unscathed – strong, broad, lean, and muscular. Bronzed like a god.
It was his face. It looked like a vicious animal had tried to tear it to shreds and almost succeeded. The jagged wounds had healed thick and lifted. Angry, red streaks clawed from his right jaw up to his cheekbone.
A crater blinked back at me from where a chunk of his left cheek used to sit. He’d busted part of his upper lip, too, and what was once an elegant nose now dipped with his missing cheek.